Understanding the Vengeance 1500 USB Gaming Headset EQ profiles

By Andrew Kim, on November 02, 2011 07:00 AM

Corsair has created five different profiles for the Vengeance™ 1500 Dolby 7.1 USB Gaming Headset which are included with version 1.1 of our headset driver software. This post will briefly explain the various profiles, what they do, and how they were selected.

Corsair headset driver version 1.1 software includes these five presets. For those who do not see these profiles in their software, please go to the Vengeance 1500 product page to download the software.

When running headset driver version 1.1, plug in your headset, and open up the software by clicking on the "Corsair" icon in the tray. You will see the following five profile settings.

As the names suggest, we made these EQ profiles to provide users with the optimal settings for various scenarios. We will go in-depth to explain what exactly each EQ profile does and the thought process behind them.

MUSIC+BASS

For those who typically use the "bass boost" function, listen to bass-heavy, explosion filled audio or wish that our previous HS1 headsets had more bass to them, this profile is for you. Throughout all of the EQ settings, you will notice that the slider at 8K Hz is significantly lowered, and this is due to the fact that the Vengeance 1500 drivers have a tendency to accentuate sound production at that frequency band. In order to compensate for this, we lowered the 8K Hz so that the sound level stays as consistent as possible throughout the frequency spectrum.

You’ll also notice that the gain increases as you go from 120Hz to 60Hz to 30Hz. This is due to the fact that the vengeance 1500 drivers have a tendency to "roll off" beginning from 120Hz and going down. To compensate, we ramped up the gain as the frequencies decrease. With music, you want to achieve equal levels of sound through each frequency band, and since this is the "Music + Bass" profile, you only want the lower frequencies to be higher than the rest.

MUSIC

This profile setting is identical to that of the "Music + Bass" profile, except for a flatter bass response. Generally speaking, this profile is for you "true Audiophiles" and is the best profile to recreate what the producers and sound engineers wanted you to hear when they were editing and recording the music.

You may notice that the bass is still increased by a slight amount. This was our own judgment call, based on listening tests in the lab.

MOVIES [MOD X]

Some of you may wonder what "Mod X" is. This is a special curve designed to compensate for the way movie soundtracks are originally engineered. Movies are meant for movie theaters, and movie theaters have a very big acoustic space to fill. Your living room does not, and we have adjusted the profile accordingly to compensate.

You will mostly notice that the general trend goes down if you read left to right on the EQ frequency spectrum. This is because there are so many tracks and explosions, bangs, clicks and rattles on top of music all playing at the same time. Without taming the high-end frequencies, your ears will become fatigued and listening to such sound effects will become annoying rather than engaging.

F.P.S. and MMORPG

These gaming profile settings are optimized for First Person Shooter and Massive Multiplayer Online games, respectively. As you can see, the two are quite similar to one another; however the F.P.S. profile has a slightly increased sub-bass frequency response as well as a slightly higher high-end response. On the MMORPG profile, you will notice a very slight increase in the mid-range frequency range.

In F.P.S. games, there are lots of explosions, gunshots, footsteps and other ambient noises. Knowing the position of an opponent is very important in F.P.S. games, and the sub-bass, along with the high-end treble, are responsible for creating those effects. In MMO gaming, communication between your teammates is much more important, and so the mid-band is increased, where the vocal range is represented.

We hope that these profiles help to enhance everyone’s experience with the new Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset, as well as informing users on how to create their own individual profile settings. Please feel free to leave comments with what you think!